Painting class has started up again. I missed it; due to circumstances, I couldn’t make the last class in December, so I feel like it’s been a really long time. We’re doing something a little different this month: staying for five hours instead of three. The hard part for me is not staying late, its getting there early. Yes, I know: most people have to be at work every day by 9. There’s a reason I’ve designed my life (with lots of help from Jay) so that I don’t have to. But painting class is so much fun, it’s worth yanking myself out of bed at 7 in the morning.
This cold of mine is lingering and morning is particularly troublesome. It takes some time for the meds to kick in and my head to clear. I got to the studio and asked to set up as far from the others as possible, so as to minimize their exposure to my illness. All unnecessary: everyone has the same cold! The entire class was a cacophony of honks, wheezes, sneezes and coughs.
There are three students this month and we’ve been painting together for awhile now. We each set up our models. Designing the composition takes some time; an hour spent getting the lighting and angles just right isn’t unusual. Then, we dive in and the fun starts.
I took the white bowl of clementines off my kitchen counter and used as a drape the aqua batik curtain I’d made for the egress window in the basement. Zack prefers the curtain he made out of a large bandana with Kiss on it. Hey, he pays the rent, he gets what he wants. Anyway, I knew I had that bit of fabric and that it would look fabulous with the little oranges.
In fact, it looked so good that I’m very dissatisfied with my rendering of it and want to take another stab at it. It was also really fun to mix all those orange and aqua tones.
I didn’t pack a lunch: there’s a Dunn Bros right up the street, so I ran up there and grabbed an almond croissant and a bottle of orange juice. This cold has shrunk my appetite down to nothing. I’m rather grateful for that aspect, since I ate so much over Christmas I should be able to hibernate on the extra calories.
One sad note: I threw away two bins of Christmas cookies this week. No one in the house was eating them except me and I can’t even taste them! The last Austrian Chocolate Ball I ate tasted like a clump of clay with rocks in it. I couldn’t tell if it was my cold or if the cookies have actually gone stale and tasteless but it doesn’t really matter. The last dozen chocolate balls went into the garbage, along with about ten Devil cookies. They tasted like week old bread, too. I don’t know what’s come of the world when my family can’t manage to eat an entire batch of Devil cookies.
At least I could taste the orange juice.
Rick streams music into the studio while work: it’s a nice back ground. After lunch, he asked us what we’d like to hear and suggested the Beatles, to which J and I said “YES!”
Two songs later, J said “Is this Heaven? We’re listening to the Beatles and painting!”
My thoughts exactly!
Although, in my version of Heaven, my sinuses aren’t aching and my painting is more confident.
We worked halfway through the afternoon and I just beat the traffic home.
I was so pumped up by the morning that I had the energy to get into my office and work for a few hours before dinner. We’ve all been living on soup and toast this week. Oh: Jay finally caught the same nasty virus Zack and I’ve had for the past week.
A nice thing about winter: it gets dark out so early, you feel no guilt about calling it a day at 5 and collapsing into bed by 7. Or in my case, falling asleep in front of the TV. I’ve been sleeping ten hours a night all week and that’s without the aid of Nyquil.
Yesterday was cold and clear with very little wind, so MJ, Katie and I tried to walk around the lake. We’re all sick but we’re tired of being stuck in the house and we thought some fresh, non-germ-infested air would do us good. I’m sure it did, but Katie and Muzz had chosen their footwear poorly and had frozen toes by the time we’d gone a quarter way around, so we turned back. We got a couple of miles under our belts without risking frostbit feet.
This week, the temps are supposed to get back up above zero; there will be plenty of opportunities to walk. In fact, the rink outside my window is packed with skaters, which it hasn’t been all break, so it must be warming up! You know it’s very cold when an ice rink in Minneapolis is deserted: we’ll skate outside in subzero temps, as long as it’s not windy but it’s been double digit negatives for two weeks.
After our aborted walk, I tried to get some work done but my energy levels were very low, so not much got done.
I was getting ready to call it a day when my daughter called. She and BoopityBoop had been in the neighborhood with friends and she wondered if it was okay to swing by.
YES.
Then, she asked if I felt up to watching the babies so she and Adam could go to a movie?
OH, TWIST MY ARM. YES!!
So, instead of spending the evening dozing through some episodes of Fixer Upper, Jay, Zack and I spent it playing with Boopity Boop. So much fun!
We chased them around the house, played with them, sang songs with them and fed them their dinner. They were delightful. I’ve never known a single baby to be less temperamental than these two: they’re always happy. What’s really fun is that it’s so obvious that they not only know us, they like us. They think Zack is the best and they’re fascinated by his beard. He played peek-a-boo with them around the kitchen island for ten minutes. Boopity kept shrieking with laughter and crawling away but Boop looked down the kitchen and thought “He’s right there. I’m gonna git him!” and she did.
They were with us for about three hours and didn’t have a cranky second. Both were sleepy later and Boopity fell asleep with me on the couch but we couldn’t find Boop’s paci, so she wouldn’t close her eyes, although I could tell she was tired. Katie and Adam saw Jumanji, which they both liked.
Boop said “Nana” several times. Jay heard it, too!
Today, I really have to get some work done, whether I feel like it or not.
I’m making stew for dinner. I hope we can taste it.